Malta International Airport

The old passenger terminal at Luqa Airport was converted into an air cargo terminal when the completely re-furbished Malta International Airport became fully operational in March 1992.

Malta International Airport (IATA: MLA, ICAO: LMML) is the only airport in Malta, and it serves the whole Maltese Archipelago. It is located between Luqa and Gudja in Malta. It occupies the location of the former RAF Luqa and was completely re-furbished, becoming fully operational on March 25, 1992. It is still referred to by locals as Luqa Airport, and sometimes as Valletta Airport internationally, as it is located 8 kilometres from the Maltese capital Valletta. The airport serves as the main hub for Air Malta, though many other airlines also fly to the airport, including many holiday airlines. The airport is operated by Malta International Airport plc, a public limited company. It also hosts the Area Control Centre. The airport hosts the annual Malta Airshow, visited by military and civil aircraft from various European and other countries.

Incidents and accidents

• On November 23, 1985, Luqa Airport was the scene of one of the deadliest aircraft hijackings in aviation history.^[1] EgyptAir Flight 648 was forced to land in Malta en–route to Libya. On the agreement of Maltese officials, Egyptian antiterrorist forces were dispatched to deal with the incident. Storming of the Boeing 737 resulted in the death of over 60 passengers^[2] plus several security personnel, aircrew and hijackers.
• Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted for the Lockerbie bombing on the theory that, by some unexplained method, he loaded a bomb onto a plane at Luqa Airport that eventually found its way, via Frankfurt and Heathrow, onto PanAm 103.

Airlines and destinations

• Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
• Aerosvit (Kiev-Boryspil)
• Air Berlin (Nuremberg)
• Air Malta (Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Benghazi, Berlin-Tegel, Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Cairo [seasonal], Cardiff, Casablanca, Catania, Cluj-Napoca, Corfu, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Exeter, Frankfurt, Geneva, Gibraltar [seasonal], Glasgow-International, Hamburg, Ibiza [seasonal], Istanbul-Atatürk, Leeds/Bradford, Leipzig/Halle [seasonal], Lisbon, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow, London-Stansted, Lourdes, Lyon, Madrid, Manchester, Marseille, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Domodedovo, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Munich, Nantes, Naples, Newcastle, Nice, Norwich, Nottingham, Oslo, Palermo, Paris-Orly, Plovdiv, Porto [seasonal], Prague, Reggio Calabria, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov [seasonal], St. Petersburg, Sofia, Stockholm-Arlanda, Tel Aviv [seasonal], Timişoara, Toulouse, Trieste, Tripoli, Tunis, Valencia, Venice, Vienna, Zürich)
• Air Mediterranee (Lyon, Marseille, Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
• Alitalia (Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
• Atlant-Soyuz Airlines (Moscow-Vnukovo)
• Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
• British Airways
  • operated by GB Airways (London-Gatwick, Manchester) [end 29 March]
• BritishJET (Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow-International, Leeds/Bradford, London-Gatwick, London-Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham)
• Centralwings (Warsaw)
• Clickair (Barcelona) [seasonal]
• Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)
• easyJet (London-Gatwick, Manchester) [begin 30 March]
• Emirates (Dubai, Larnaca)
• Finnair (Helsinki)
• First Choice Airways (Bristol, London-Gatwick)
• Futura International Airways (Dublin)
• Germanwings (Cologne/Bonn, Stuttgart)
• Girjet (Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia)
• Jat Airways (Belgrade, Tripoli)
• Jetairfly (Brussels)
• Jettime (Billund, Copenhagen)
• JetX Airlines (Stockholm-Arlanda, Gothenburg, Malmö)
• Libyan Airlines (Tripoli)
• Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
• Luxair (Luxembourg)
• Malev (Budapest)
• Meridiana (Bologna)
• MyTravel Airways (Glasgow-International, Manchester, Newcastle)
• Nordic Airways (Stockholm-Arland)
• Norwegian Air Shuttle (Oslo) [starts March 2008]
• Ryanair (Barcelona-Girona, Bremen, Dublin, London-Luton, Pisa, Stockholm-Skavsta, Valencia, Venice-Treviso)
• Scandinavian Airlines System (Oslo [starts 1 April])
• Spanair (Barcelona, Madrid)
• Sterling Airlines (Billund, Copenhagen)
• Thomas Cook Airlines (Birmingham, London-Gatwick, Manchester)
• Thomsonfly (Doncaster/Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, London-Gatwick)
• transavia.com (Amsterdam)
• sevenair (Monastir, Tunis)
• XL Airways (Birmingham, Bristol, London-Gatwick)

Gallery

Departures lounge

Arrivals lounge

View of the outside of the terminal

External links

• Malta International Airport
• Information about Malta International Airport
• FLIGHTLINE Malta aviation website
• Airport information for LMML at World Aero Data

References

1. ^ "1985: Commandoes storm hijacked plane", BBC. Retrieved on 2007-02-07. 
2. ^ "After nearly 11 years, EgyptAir hijacker sentenced", CNN, October 7, 1996. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.